


Small Minded

by Uniasus



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Gen, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:50:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uniasus/pseuds/Uniasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a small mind wasn't that big of a drawback. She still landed temp jobs, experienced a variety of work settings. Being able to just accept things she figured was a good thing too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Minded

**Author's Note:**

> First on ff.net in Dec 2011

Donna always had a small mind. She couldn’t fit much into it, and thus never excelled in school. Her mum always insisted that it was simply that she didn’t try enough, and maybe that was partly true, but it didn’t change the fact that she had a small mind.

Her thoughts were simple, her desires basic, and her plans were never thought out enough to succeed. It was her simple mind that allowed her to be manipulated by H.C. Clements and Lance Bennett. It also failed to help her achieve her dreams of traveling. Yeah, she went to Egypt. But it wasn’t the life, or lifestyle, change that she had been hoping for. 

And really, her plan to find the Doctor? Just follow trouble and wait for him to show up? She was really, really surprised it work. (Though of course, that had more to do with fate than anything she did.)

But having a small mind wasn’t that big of a drawback. She still landed temp jobs, experienced a variety of work settings. Being able to just accept things she figured was a good thing too. Otherwise her travels with the Doctor would have been a lot more stressful. And she probably wouldn’t have waved at fat. She might have run if her mind worked one level higher. 

Still, Donna was nothing special. And never would be. Because her mind was small. But because of that, she was okay with that. For the most part.

Travelling with the Doctor made her wish otherwise. He said amazing things, like she was so important whole universes were built around her. And Rose too had said she was the most important person in the world. But she never really believed any of it because she was just a temp with a small, simple mind and the universe has undoubtedly made a mistake. 

Bloody universe. 

Because as much as she knew it wasn’t true, she wanted it to be. Important, that is. She never felt that way at home. (Well, maybe a bit with her Granddad, but never with her mum.) And her temp jobs didn’t garner her attention. Or her little back water blog where she posted her weird discoveries and investigation while trying to come across the Doctor again. She was just boring Donna Nobel, who despite her name really belonged with the pheasants. 

Sometimes though, she could believe. 

Like when she stood inside the doors of the TARDIS while Pompeii fell outside, emotions she had a hard time naming flowing out of her and begging the Doctor to save even just one person. For her. And he did. Oh he did! A full family!

Donna had never had a stranger do something for her before that (Lance didn’t count as he was just using her as a human incubator). And he was always protecting her, keeping her safe, and saving her while they travelled. It made her believe she could be important. Not that she was, as she kept telling the Doctor that, but that she had that potential. Someday. But for the time being, being the Doctor’s companion was enough. She was travelling with someone who cared for her (as a mate only, cuz Donna could still tell his heart was Rose’s) and it made her so happy she wanted to do it forever and forever. A simple, childish thought from a simple, childish mind. 

And then, it no longer was.

Touching the Doctor’s hand was the best thing that happened to her. Her mind was suddenly a million times bigger, and instead of it all being empty space it was filled with impossible knowledge. The scenery of alien worlds, proofs and calculations that Einstein couldn’t do, how to reroute and build machines, and how the timey-wimey nature of timelines worked. Oh it was glorious knowledge!

And with it came logical, complex thought and Donna was able to see what the Doctor had been telling her. That she was important. That things were meant to be how they were - her and the Doctor 2.0? or maybe .5? He did only have one heart after all. .5 it was. 

She was the Doctor Donna, and life was good. I mean, she practically saved the day! After being electrocuted and the knowledge all settled. 

Imagine the adventures she could have with the Doctor now! They could save more worlds and she would be less of a dead weight. And now that all was said and done and the Doctor was again separated from Rose (or at least, this version) maybe she could prevent that I-may-say-I’m-alright-but-I’m-really-not face. 

But instead here he is, looking at her with that same face and she knows what he is thinking. Her own mind had just showed it to her. Human mind + Timelord consciousness = death. Her mind just snagged, she knows she stuttered, but she keeps going. Don’t think about it, forge ahead, and maybe she can live through one more adventure. Oh how she’d like that, at least one adventure sharing his brainwaves! 

She stutters again and she moves around the TARDIS as he approaches, softness and pain in his eyes. There are two options, die or remove her new Timelord knowledge and she wants death. She wants to tell him that, because now her mind is big and she’s important and knows it, and she could never go back to being just plain temp Donna. 

Please, please Doctor, she thinks, I’d rather die than lose what I have now. 

He doesn’t hear her, but wasn’t he telepathic? Maybe he’s blocking her out, ignoring her, or maybe she’s doing it wrong. His hands are on either side of her face.

A flicker of memory surfaces in her mind, of Rose having a similar problem and it being kissed away. Is he going to kiss her? It might be worth it. But she would be back to being the Donna she never wanted to be. She starts crying.

And maybe she is projecting correctly, or maybe the Doctor just knows her well enough that after what she had momentarily been, anything less would kill her inside. So he takes her memories too. 

She feels them being ripped out of her head. It’s not gentle, though he tries to be, and she’s outright crying and screaming no. It’s not working and she’s losing not just her large mind but the best times of her life. She’s being forced to become someone she doesn’t want to be, a Donna with no adventure in her life, no meaning, who lives day by day in her mother’s house and never sees or dos anything exciting. It’s a person she hates and she hates the Doctor toofor forcing her to become it

And he knows it, accepts it, and before he takes the last of her memories whispers in her mind. But now when you wake up in the morning, you’ll be alive and happy. And that will make me happy.

Hearing such sadness almost makes her agree, give it up. But she is too angry at the Doctor right now and lashes out, leaving him one passing thought before all her memories are gone. 

But you’re killing my soul.

And her large mind becomes a small one. 

She doesn’t know why there are dried tear tracks on her cheek when she wakes.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, I don't know of any show that has made me cry as much as this one.


End file.
